(Finance) – Nel 2023 TAP carried a total of 15.9 million passengers, 2.1 million more than the previous year, equivalent to growth of 15.2%. On the six Italian routes the carrier exceeded the million passenger threshold, with over 1.1 million passengers transported, recording an increase of 31.8% compared to 2022. Globally, the load factor of TAP flights was ‘80.8%, 0.8 percentage points (pp) more than 2022 and already up 0.7% pp compared to 2019, the last pre-pandemic year.
RPK (Revenue Passenger Kilometer, an indicator of aviation productivity) increased by 16% compared to 2022 and by 1.4% compared to 2019. TAP’s performance on all long-haul routes records a total of 4.6 million passengers transported, i.e. 15.1% more than in 2022, and 9.8% more than in 2019.
On the United States and Canada routes, passengers transported by TAP were 1.46 million, 18.4% more than in 2022 and 39.5% more than in 2019. On the routes to Brazil, the total number of passengers transported was over 1.9 million, with an increase of 20.3% compared to 2022 and 8.4% compared to 2019.
Regarding routes to the autonomous regions of the Azores and Madeira, last year TAP transported 1.5 million passengers, i.e. 13.2% more than in 2022 and 5.7% more than to 2019.
All segments of the TAP network recorded growth compared to 2022. However, compared to 2019, the last full year before the pandemic, TAP has not yet fully recovered the traffic levels it held on mainland Portugal, Europe and Africa routes, recording, in terms of total numbers, – 7% compared to the total number of passengers transported in 2019, before the pandemic.
It is important to underline that the restructuring plan defined by the European Commission and to which TAP will be subject until 2025 requires it to operate with a smaller number of aircraft and a smaller number of slots at Lisbon Airport compared to 2019.